'Really a relief': Family finds closure with discovery of missing Lafayette hiker's remains

The Grand County coroner on Tuesday tentatively identified the remains of Patricia Wallace, a 74-year-old Lafayette resident who went missing while hiking in the Boulder County foothills more than two years ago. (Courtesy photo)

For the past two years, whenever people asked Katie Moore about her mother, she had to tell them Patricia Wallace was still lost in the Colorado mountains, even though she knew that was not the case.

"If people asked about her, I had to tell them she was missing, even though I knew she was gone and passed," Moore said.

But this week, Moore received the closure she had been looking for since 2012.

Human remains discovered in Grand County this summer are believed to be Wallace, Grand County Coroner Brenda Bock announced Tuesday.

Bones and clothing found with the remains are consistent with Wallace, 74, who was last seen hiking with friends near Camp Dick on July 3, 2012, the coroner said. Wallace's ID was found in a backpack.

Moore said sheriff's officials tried to reach her with the news through her son, who currently lives at Wallace's home in Lafayette. When her son told her to contact investigators, Moore she was hoping it was the call she'd been waiting for.

"At that moment, I just said, 'Please let this be it,'" Moore said. "I had played the scene in my head over and over again, being told that they found her. It was great because they were able to tell me right away they were very certain these were her remains. It wasn't that they had found a set of remains and maybe..."

'A ways off the beaten path'

At the time of her disappearance in 2012, the friends Wallace was hiking with told investigators that Wallace — who may have been suffering from early stages of dementia — decided to take a route that she thought would be easier down the trail.

But two witnesses told officials at the time of the search they saw someone matching Wallace's description hiking in the opposite direction, leading Grand County rescuers to join the search.

After looking for two weeks and finding no signs of her, officials called off the search, believing Wallace "likely perished from exposure or the lack of food and water."

On Aug. 9 of this year, a family backpacking near the 10,000-foot elevation area of Thunderbolt Creek — which is a few miles west of Buchanan Pass Trail — discovered the remains while trying to find a campsite. They were able to get a note out to the U.S. Forest Service.

The clothing and a backpack with the remains matched the description of what Wallace was last seen wearing.

A DNA sample has been sent for analysis to confirm the identify.

The family that found the body was traveling from Santa Fe, New Mexico, and issued a statement saying they were "saddened by the discovery, but also realized that this would help bring closure to the family of the missing person."

"This was a ways off the beaten path," the family said in the statement. "If we had done any one thing differently that afternoon, even little things, we would not have made the discovery. With all the tall vegetation and the stream, the discovery was like finding a needle in a haystack.

"It's a bit of a miracle that we were where we were at. That little miracle is what it took for the family to have closure. We offer our prayers and well wishes to the family."

'Teeny, tiny bit of hope'

Moore said everyone was surprised at how far out of the search area the remains were found. She said officials told her an uneaten granola bar was found in Wallace's backpack, which gives her hope her mother passed away the day she went missing.

"Hopefully it was not painful, and it did not drag out," Moore said. "I hope it was a quick thing."

Wallace's family already held a memorial service for her last year, but Moore said she is preparing to come out to Colorado from her home in Pennsylvania and hopes to spread Wallace's ashes somewhere.

But for now, Moore is just relieved to have closure.

"You don't realize it until they tell you, but you always have that teeny, tiny bit of hope in you," Moore said. "But it is really a relief now to be able to report to people that my mother passed away."

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